Trials Of An Author

carne to a man wfao has had a enccess in literature which we shotüd envy did we not all agree he deserves it, a lady who. was neither young nor fair, but who had the assorance of yonth in combination with the obstinacy of advancing years. "I have decided," she said to hún, "that I must earn my living by writing poems. I sent a poem to the Blank Magazine, and they returned it with a printed slip. Now, I want you to write to the editor, and teil liim that he made a nñstake. " It naturally seemed to the author that he had to deal with a humorist or a mad woman; bnt the lady was certainly in earnest and apparently sane. He endeavored to show her that it was not his business to interfere with the decisions of the editora of magazines, who might be snpposed to know their own business. The lady insisted, however, and in the end he waa forced to decline point blank to do what she asked. Thereupon she turned upon him and declared that he was one of those who endeavor to keep others out in order that they may have the field to themselves, and who are meanly jealous of other authors who are mire to eclipse them if they are but heard. "It is all a ring," she declared with vehemence. "I have bren told so before, and now I am sure of it. I can't make you do justice to me, but I 'can show you up." Her method of "showing him up" has been to send letters of bitter invective to tne papers, one of which feil into my hands. Of course nobody would print them, but she perseveres, and in addition to this she sends to the luckless author, whose crime is that he did not make the editor of the Blank Magazine print the rhymes of an unknown woman, a letter once a week. Of course he burns them unopened, and it is not easy to see what satiafaction it can be to the woman to keep on with this sort of thing, but the fact remains that she does. The story ia not of prof ound importance, but it throws a cnrious bit of a side light upon the life of the successful author of today.- Arlo Bates in Book Buyer.